Lucky Seven Meme

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I was tagged by both Helen Howell and Sonya Clark for a Lucky Seven Excerpt.

The rules are simple:

1. Go to page 77 in your current manuscript
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next seven lines as they are - no cheating
4. Tag 7 other authors (Done on Facebook)

This is from To Kill A Dead Man, the sequel to The Guns of Retribution. I know it looks like a lot but that's literally seven lines in the front I'm using!

“Boss, pardon me for sayin’ so, but you’re normally so calm and collected. Only this stuff with Miss Marsden has got you all riled up. Forget about what Marvel said we did, or didn’t do. Right now, we gotta find McEavy, get Bess back, and hopefully find Miss Marsden.” 

He looked me straight in the eye, his blue eyes all serious and earnest. I’d never seen Billy look like that, and he might as well have slapped me. I took a step backward, and shook my head, trying to clear away all the cobwebs. Billy was right. I was getting carried away, and I needed to focus. I was no good to Peggy if I went off half-cocked.


If you liked that, maybe you'll enjoy The Guns of Retribution!

Strange things are afoot at the circle K...

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Hello, all. Apologies for the absence - many things are afoot in the crazy world of Icy at the moment. I just got engaged to my fabulous other half, I've gotten involved with the very excellent Chinese Whisperings project, I'm trying (and succeeding) to keep up with my reading (I'm onto my second book of February - first was John Marks' Fangland, now it's Jasper Fforde's Lost in a Good Book), and I'm learning Russian.

Still, I am a writer, and you'll (hopefully) be glad to know that I'm actually writing again. Not only am I redrafting my beloved novel, Fowlis Westerby, I'm also going to be doing something slightly new. At the end of January, I posted a flash fiction called Still Running, and it got a lot of people asking questions on Twitter. It seems that people wanted to know more, so I've decided to write an online serial, using my flash as a starting point! I'll be starting a new blog purely for this purpose, and I am to post a new installment every Friday...starting tomorrow!

Call back, won't you, and check it out...

(In lieu of any relevant stock imagery to accompany this post, I decided to go with a photo of my own, purely because I like it. It was taken inside Dover Castle last summer...)

I write, therefore I am...or something.

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Receptionists will tell you they are receptionists. Solicitors will tell you they are solicitors. Yet writers will tell you they're "trying to write", or they're "working on being a writer". They rarely own up to what they actually are. If you write, then you're a writer. It's that simple. (For a better explanation of this concept, see C.N.Nevets' post here on the same subject).

Funny thing is, I'm no better. I talk about being a writer, and I've even had work accepted, and yet I still have problems nailing my colours to the mast and saying "I am a writer". I'm not sure why. It's probably something to do with the difficulty in reconciling something most people see as a pasttime with a profession, and it's also something a lot of people say they're doing when, in actual fact, they're not doing anything. Still, I've sold a few of my stories and I write most days, which satisfies most criteria, but yet still the doubts remained unquenched.

Still, I've decided to redraft my first novel, and 2010 will be the year when I try to find it a home. With this in mind, I'd better learn to call myself a writer!

So I thought I might tell you a little about my book. I suppose it best comes under the young adult/middle grade umbrella, sitting squarely in the 'supernatural' camp. It's about a teenager named Sarah, who is growing up in the western Highlands under the far-from-watchful eyes of her socialite mother and scientist father. Sarah not only discovers that ghosts are real, they are also organised. She befriends the castle's ghost, a cavalier named Fowlis Westerby who has been assigned to her family. When things go wrong at the ghostly HQ, Sarah and Fowlis have to team up to straighten everything out.

I'm really proud of it as it stands, but I know it needs work. Luckily I think I know how to solve the few plot niggles, and once I'm done, Sarah will be getting her own blog. I may even given Fowlis his own Twitter feed. Before you scoff that spirits can't use computers, I shall direct you to watch Ghost!

Right, I'm off to do some editing. Have an excellent day, people!